Closer
by Bre
Summary: After the losses of war, Remus and Ginny both find themselves in need. A late night visit sets them on their path...
1. one

**_Closer. Hard R. Remus/Ginny. Post-war._**  
_You can have my isolation  
You can have the hate that it brings  
You can have my absence of faith  
You can have my everything_  
  
"What was it you wanted, Ginny?" he asked tiredly, rubbing the back of his neck.   
  
Ginny's hand gripped the doorframe to Remus' bedroom and she suddenly felt quite small. She watched his hand knead the taut muscles at the nape of his neck and became momentarily entranced by the lines and arches of his throat. That is, until he coughed rather pointedly. She bit her lip. "I know it's late, Professor, but I…"  
  
"What was it you wanted?"   
  
His tone was firm. Slightly irritable. A pang of guilt struck Ginny, but the thought that she may have disturbed his rest was easily chased away by the books and papers spread out across Remus' bed. Professor Lupin never slept much anymore. "Well… you see, um… Professor…"  
  
She was shaking. Remus softened his expression slightly upon noting how nervous she was. "Remus. I'm not a professor anymore. And you're not a student anymore, anyhow."  
  
"Not much of anything anymore, I don't think… Remus," she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself.  
  
He didn't speak for a few moments, closing his eyes. "It's three already. Come out of the hallway."  
  
She stepped inside hesitantly. Remus reached around her to close the door, sealing them off from the rest of Grimmauld Place. He sighed. "Sit. There's a chair under those clothes, or else… you can push those books aside. I suppose you want to… talk?"  
  
She perched herself on the edge of the bed. Brown eyes met his amber ones with a confused sort of sadness. A brief moment allowed Remus to note that the hollow, bitter lines of loneliness had started etching themselves where laugh lines should have been. "There's no one to talk about… is there?"  
  
"It's been a long day," he offered weakly, sitting on the edge of a desk, piled high with papers.  
  
"Mass memorials are rarely short," she retorted. She swallowed hard before continuing. "It's just us now, Remus. You know that, right?"  
  
It was his turn to meet her with confusion. "What are you on about? There are plenty of people still here, Gin. Bill and Fleur. Fred and Angelina. George and Oliver. Harry and Luna…"  
  
"They've all got each other!" she exclaimed in exasperation. "They're all bloody paired off and perfect. They're all matched up so that they can hold hands and shag like bunnies and everything else goes away. And here we are." She bit down on her lip as her voice cracked.   
  
"Here we are," he conceded. He watched with mild curiosity as she wove strands of her now-waist length red hair in and out of her fingers. She hadn't cut it since her fifth year, he remembered, because she'd found out the Dark Lord's mistress had hair that fell to her knees. He stood again and paced about for a moment. "Things have never just 'gone away,' for me, anyhow. It's something you get used to with time. There will inevitably be days every spring where everyone else can smile and I can't breathe."  
  
"I don't smile in springtime either, you know."  
  
Her voice was so childlike that he hardly recognized it as the voice of a normally mature nineteen year old girl. He stopped in his tracks and met her eyes again. She smiled with considerable bitterness. "Tom," she said, succinctly.  
  
"I know." Remus nodded in understanding and looked away from her again. "Sirius."  
  
"I know." There was a long silence before Remus spoke again, listlessly.  
  
"What was it you wanted?"  
  
"Something you've got." Ginny swallowed hard again. "I don't want to smile, Remus. I don't want to be like them. I just needed… And I thought maybe…"  
  
"You wanted to fuck, then." He said it as though it were a fact from a textbook, half-expecting her to blush and leave. He found himself pleasantly surprised when she did not, instead meeting his eyes with a firm "yes".  
  
She rose as if to kiss him, but his hands found her shoulders and pushed her down to the bed so that she lay across the width of the king size bed he and Sirius had once shared on top of a layer of open books. He straddled her hips nimbly, leaning down to press his mouth roughly to hers, his large hands holding her shoulders to the bed. She felt him pressing against her through his pajama bottoms and her oversized boxer shorts and let out a small whimper into the bruising kiss. He pulled back slowly and moved so she could feel his breath at her ear. "Like this? Was this what you wanted, Ginevra?"  
  
She meant to answer and explain herself properly, but his lips at her neck brought her concentrations elsewhere and she busied herself with tangling her fingers in his longish hair and attempting to get her pale legs up around his narrow waist. Pages rustled beneath her and she winced as a particularly well-bound book dug into her back. He chuckled against her skin at her squirming and moved to the side of her, breaking their contact from the hips down. One of his hands allowed her to roll onto her side a moment so that he could sweep the books onto the floor. The other moved from her shoulder to slip under the waistband of her bedtime apparel. She wriggled away from the caresses he'd attempted to bestow upon her. "Just come inside me," she pleaded softly. "I just…"  
  
Before she could finish, his finger slipped into her, closely followed by another. "So tight…" he remarked, smirking slightly at her groan.  
  
"Just FUCK me, Remus." Her teeth clenched and her eyes met his with a need unlike any sexual desire Remus had seen. And suddenly he understood.  
  
Their remaining clothes were disposed of quickly. His smirk faded. He touched her face once gently, kissing her cheek before entering her. "You're sure?"  
  
Her hips arched up with a small cry. "Do it. Please…" She gasped as he began pounding into her with slow, deliberate movements. "I need this."  
  
His pace quickened as he felt her begin to contract around him and his lips found her neck again. He closed his eyes tightly, feeling the wolf take over as he came hard, his teeth breaking the skin of her neck, and a single cry of rapture escaping Ginny's lips.  
  
Remus rolled off of her and adjusted their positions so that she lay with her back to him, curled up together. He licked the wound gingerly. When he had cleaned it to his satisfaction, he buried his face in her hair. "This was what you wanted?"  
  
"Mmm…" she affirmed, finding his hand. A hollow smile crept across her face, unseen by her drowsy bedmate. She clung to his hand with a hungry desperation, despite the exhaustion and aches settling over her. "I'm just like you now." She kissed his knuckles. "Nothing else means anything."  
  
And then they slept.


	2. two

 Lyrics from STP, "Plush". Some Trent, too, because I have a feeling this story is going to end up a lot like the song "The Fragile".  Because everything I bloody WRITE ends up like… never mind. Well. Ahem.  
  
Apologies for my "Latin" in advance, but thanks to Chloe for the word for "sin". This is a kind of flashback/backstory bit. Yeah… um… just read it. Third chapter should be along soon enough.   
---  
_And I feel, so much depends on the weather  
So is it raining in your bedroom?   
And I see, that these are the eyes of disarray  
Would you even care?   
  
And I feel it  
And she feels it  
  
Where you going to tomorrow?   
Where you going with that mask I found?   
And I feel, and I feel  
When the dogs begin to smell her  
Will she smell alone?_  
  
Remus awoke before Ginny did. He brushed a bit of hair off her neck carefully, so as not to wake her up, and glanced at the bite he'd given her a few hours ago. It had, as he'd expected, already healed in true werewolf fashion. She was just like him now, in that regard. He had given her the one darkness he knew she could not attain on her own.  
  
That though stirred a good blend of emotions in him as he felt her tremble in her sleep. He found, oddly enough, that guilt was not among them. He was sure it had been there initially, but when he thought about it, it did give her something to cling to. And, if he was to be truly honest with himself, the wolf had wanted a mate since the first time he'd smelled her blood…  
---  
  
Her voice was soft and steady, barely audible. Walking by her room, he almost didn't realize she was inside. The other children had trounced back inside and gathered in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place to show off their new school items a few hours ago and had remained there talking about the year ahead. He had thought she was with them, but his chest tightened when he passed her door. The faintest of lights seemed to be coming from the crack above the floor.   
  
Curiosity and a flicker of concern brought him to touch the door, though he jerked his hand back when the magic hit him like an electric shock. Despite the shock, his touch carried enough force to push the door open a crack and allow him to see in.  
  
"_Peccatus cruor addo vos volo… Peccatus cruor addo vos volo… __Peccatus…_" Ginny sat on the floor facing the window, her back to the door. From her came a soft glow in a distinct shade of green. Remus knew that green far too well. His eyes widened.  
  
Disregarding energy crackling around, he kicked it open and entered, expecting Ginny to stop, the light to go out, and to drag her down to her mother for a chat.  
  
"_Peccatus cruor addo vos volo… Peccatus cruor…_" she chanted with conviction. Desperation.   
  
'_Sin of the blood will bring you to me…_'  
  
Remus' eyes went, if possible, wider than before. "Ginny?" No response. "Ginny!" he cried, darting over to her and jostling her shoulders.  
  
That broke her focus. The light faded almost instantly as she stopped chanting, but there was something else that Remus noticed as he inhaled. The scent of blood went straight to his head. Ginny, having been shaken from what appeared to be something much more powerful than Remus had realized, rolled onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. He knelt down to her and saw that blood dripped steadily from a wound on her left forearm. "Ginny…" he breathed.  
  
"Merlin… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, but I just can't… I couldn't help it. I could feel him…" she babbled. Her eyes were held tightly shut and she bit down so fiercely on her lip Remus thought she might go straight through it.  
  
"What are you talking about?" he asked, incredulously. He paused for a moment, looking around, before looking at her again. "What were you DOING?" He touched her face. She jerked away from the contact, but her eyes opened slowly and met Remus'. Her stare drifted over his shoulder to the array of items her body had been blocking from his view before. With a furrowed brow, he followed her gaze to her wand, a freshly extinguished candle, a rumpled piece or paper that seemed to have been ripped from a journal, and a white mask, streaked with what could only be her blood.   
  
When he turned back to her, she was sitting up, worrying her bruised bottom lip between her teeth. "I wanted him back," she whispered apologetically.  
  
Remus paused, looking back again. He reached out to the mask, picking it up and almost instantly dropping it again. "Where did you get this?"  
  
Her eyes welled up and her voice cracked. "Tom."  
  
His eyes narrowed, though a stab of something akin to pity hit him in the side. "Ginny, this is…"  
  
"A Death Eater's mask," she finished, quietly. "They all wear them… whenever they're close to him, they have to wear them. Even her." Her eyes became unfocussed as her thoughts overtook her.  
  
"Who are you talking about?"  
  
Her eyes met his again sharply. "Bellatrix," she said, a note of anger evident. "He loves her, now. But she never… I gave him… and my blood…" she said, her tone growing less stable with each word. Her right hand rubbed at her injured forearm, smearing more red across the white skin. "I was going to give him my blood. He would love me then."  
  
The pang of pity turned to a dull ache in his chest. "Bellatrix has a knack for stealing what people love most," Remus murmured, flicking his wand to bundle up the supplies from her attempted sacrifice. He then turned his eyes to her forearm and flicked his wand in that direction as well, cleaning the area and seemingly stopping the blood flow. Their eyes locked briefly. This time, he looked away first. "Cover that. And eat some chocolate. Whatever Dark Magic it was that you intended to dabble with, it will inevitably leave you drained. The spell was stronger than you think."  
  
"I loved him more than you think," she retorted.  
  
He nodded, brushing a few hairs from her eyes and glancing at her wound again, fighting the urge to lick at it. "I believe you." He closed his eyes for a moment, covering her small hand with his larger one. "You're not… _Dark_ like Bellatrix, Ginny."  
  
"I can try," she said, stubbornly. "I can do… the things she does."  
  
Remus smiled slightly at that. "Yes. And you can grow your hair to your knees and live like a prisoner. You could become her if you wanted to… but I think you've got too much pride for that. You know, deep down, that your loyalties lie here."  
  
"And so what if they do?" she asked, pulling her hand back. Her voice sounded tired. "I can feel the world ending, Remus. It won't matter soon enough, because I'll be too far gone to care."  
  
Another sharp pain. _'Perhaps too close to home, this time.'_   
  
"You won't be the only one." He looked at her intently for a few moments, fighting a new urge to lean in and kiss her forehead. "I promise I…" he faltered for a moment. "We won't let you fall apart," he said. "Not before this is over."  
  
As he helped her climb into bed with a promise to keep their run in a secret, as he sat in the Order meeting later that night, and even as he fell into his nightly hours of restless slumber, the coppery scent of her blood lingered in his nose.  
  
'_I won't let you fall apart._'


	3. three

Closer, part three.

A/N: I kinda forgot about this fic until it popped into my head again. Thought I'd give it another shot... so… this is a fluffy, FLUFFY transitional chapter. Not so much going on… morning-after-deal. Another chapter with more action should pop up in the next few days.

Mild HBP spoilers. Lyrics are from The Rasmus "In the Shadows" (looks ashamed). As always, the occasional NIN lyric is likely to slide into dialogue. JKR owns characters and my soul.

---

_They say that I must learn to kill before I can feel safe_

_But I, I'd rather kill myself than turn into their slave_

_Sometimes I feel that I should go and play with the thunder_

_Somehow I just don't wanna stay and wait for a wonder_

_I've been watching, I've been waiting_

_In the shadows for my time_

_I've been searching, I've been living_

_For tomorrows all my life_

She awoke with a hard start, her pulse racing and her eyes narrowed. Calloused hands stroked her hair and arms as gentle breath danced across her cheek. She moaned softly and rolled over to face her companion.

"The wound is healed," Remus said, smiling half-heartedly.

Ginny returned his smile with a weak turn in the corner of her mouth. "Yours or mine?"

He looked stunned by this for a moment and replied "Neither," with a raw kind of honesty she wasn't quite prepared for.

Ginny, in turn, looked as though she'd been slapped, but curled closer into him anyhow. "It's over, at any rate. We've got all the time in the world to form scars."

"I'm more concerned about forming the courage to walk downstairs," he murmured into her hair. "I feel like they'll all know... they'll smell it on us. On you."

"What does it matter?" she scoffed.

"I'm at least twenty years your senior, Gin..."

"Doesn't stop Hermione and _Snape_." Ginny shook her head. "She left after midnight. Harry hasn't quite forgiven everyone's _favorite _professor to the extent where he could stay in the house."

Remus' eyes slid shut. "As much as Harry may resent Severus for doing his job, I think even he would agree that their evening activities would be measurably less sinister than the creation of a werewolf."

"Yes, well... Hermione simply couldn't _bear_ to be alone..." she rolled her eyes.

"Nor could you, it seems," Remus remarked, laughing softly at her scowl. "What made you come to _me_?"

It was stark and silent for a few moments, a sickening haze of uncertainty falling over them both. "I thought you might understand," she said, when it became too excruciating. "I suppose I couldn't see the sense in waiting any longer."

"Waiting?"

"For something permanent," she said, her hand covering his where it lay over her thundering pulse. "I've spent six... nearly seven years waiting for Tom to promise me an eternity, knowing full well that a promise from him would mean next to nothing. All the while, you were here with everything I wanted..."

"I'm not sure whether I should feel flattered or used."

"Perhaps both," she admitted, "but we're together now."

"Permanently," he replied, swallowing hard.

"Do you regret it?" Ginny asked, looking at his eyes with an emotion akin to fear. "Do you wish you'd changed Sirius before?" She looked away. "Instead?"

Remus often questioned himself in this line, but generally came to the same conclusion. "It wasn't meant to be. By the time he left Azkaban, everything we did was a huge rush for survival. Besides," he swallowed hard again, unable to rid himself of the boulder in his throat, "if I'd changed him, you'd be alone now." His eyes filled and he willed the little wells to evaporate.

They didn't escape Ginny's notice, who quickly developed a boulder of her own. "You'd be happy," she whispered, brushing the pads of her fingers over his cheekbone.

Remus blinked slowly and shook his head, finding his strength. "I wouldn't let you fall apart."

She smiled weakly, grappling to regain control. "You said that before..." She ignored the pang of envy in her side when she saw how quickly he could steel himself against his ghosts.

"You remembered." The look on his face was enough to sooth the envy… and nearly everything else raging inside her.

"How could I forget?" She sat up, her head thudding lazily against the headboard, a soft beam dancing across her lips. "When I tried to do the blood sacrifice... you had this look in your eyes. I never forgot that look."

Remus sat up beside her, inexplicably chilled. He kissed her temple before sliding out of the bed. "It was an unforgettable day."

"We've got a lot of those ahead."

He laughed a hollow laugh. "I get the distinct impression that today will be one of them," he said, his eyes scanning her white skin as she slipped her nightgown back over her head. He tugged on a pair of pajama pants and an old Weird Sisters shirt that Ginny distinctly remembered having seen on Sirius. She wondered briefly whose shirt it had been originally. His voice gently broke her reverie. "Ready?"

She nodded, looking unfazed. "We've got two or three days before the moon comes, right?"

He nodded grimly. "If Hermione is at breakfast… she might be able warn Severus that his Wolfsbane reserves will be used up for this month…"

"I'll tell her in private," Ginny said, placing her hand between his shoulder blades. "For all we know, the others might be too wrapped up in their own lives to notice."

"I suppose we can always cross our fingers," he said dryly, warily eyeing his fearless companion's grip on the doorknob.

"They don't matter, Remus. We're in this together now." She turned the knob. "Nothing can stop us."

_Nothing can stop me now…_


End file.
